The Eyre Peninsula Part 2

March 10-14, 2012

After our first night in Coffin Bay we decided to drive further up the coast in search of fish and a new campsite.  We had heard good things about Farm Beach, so that was our first stop.  It had a campsite that didn't look great, so we decided to spend the day fishing and exploring, but return to Coffin Bay to spend a second night.

Farm Beach was absolutely beautiful; the beach went for miles and rivalled any beach in the Caribbean.  The idea was that you drive on the beach so you can launch your boat, so with our 4WD camper van we drove away from everyone else and enjoyed the peace and quiet. 

We had hoped to catch some King George whiting, so we waded out into the ocean as far as we could and started fishing from there.

Ben caught one little fish that we later used as crab bait, but unfortunately we didn't catch anything edible.  The tide started coming in very quickly, so we packed up and left the beach.

By that time we were all quite frustrated that we weren't catching anything good, so we went back to Coffin Bay where we had seen some guys catching squid off of the jetty.  In the end we were very glad we did, since we finally had some luck and caught some squid!  It was funny because some kids came over while my line was in the water and started talking to me, and consequently I was completely ignoring my line.  I let it go slack, then all of a sudden I got a massive bite and reeled in a squid!  When you catch a squid it shoots ink everywhere on its way out of the water and after you've plopped it on the dock, so you have to watch out you don't get hit. 

I threw my line back in, and again while the kids were distracting me I got another one!  Over the next 20 minutes I think I caught 4 and Jeanne caught 1, then the waters went quiet again.  Excitedly, we rushed back to our campsite to Google how to clean and cook squid.  Cleaning them was actually kind of fun once you got the hang of it.  The tentacles were so weird because they still suction themselves to your fingers even after the squid is dead.

After all of the money we spent on rods/lures we figured that each of these squid was worth about $50, but boy were they delicious!

After dinner the kangaroos came back, and Ryan got this hilarious picture of them being confused at a crossroads.

The next morning I went back to the jetty bright an early, and Ryan joined me a bit later.  We didn't catch anything, but I saw the beautiful sunrise and enjoyed watching the herons and pelicans catch fish.

We packed up our campsite yet again, and continued on up the coast with a few stops to look at cliffs and more beaches.  One of note was our stop at Sheringa Beach, which was absolutely beautiful and surrounded by sand dunes.  Unfortunately the surf was way too rough for us to attempt any fishing, so we pressed on in search of a more protected bay or jetty.

We ended up in Venus Bay, which had a nice long jetty and tons of pelicans.

Ryan was very brave doing this.  The pelicans were massive!

We spent some long hours on this jetty, including one stretch where we took shifts and stayed for 2 entire tide cycles (12 hours) because we heard that fish liked the time when the tide changed, but we had almost no luck.  Ben and Jeanne each hooked a squid, but both managed to escape.  I caught a good size trevally fish, but that was also used as crab bait in the end. 

Pretty disheartened, we drove to our last hope: Streaky Bay.

Streaky Bay was awesome!  It was a small town with a long jetty, and within the first few hours of our arrival Ben and Jeanne caught a bucket of crabs.  While they were doing all of the hard work, I met an old man who had been to Georgetown, and Ryan basked in the cushy grass next to the ocean.  All seemed right in the world again. (Unfortunately I lost all of the pictures Jeanne took, so I don't have any pictures of the delicious feast.)

Streaky Bay as the sun is setting.

The next day we took our crab nets, chairs, rods, and beer to the jetty and set up for a relaxing day of fishing.  We took shifts and also spent some time wandering around the town and taking quick swims in the ocean.  Streaky Bay is well known for a high population of great white sharks, so the only safe place to swim there is in a giant metal cage attached to the jetty.  Supposedly people have seen sharks from inside of the cage looking out, so despite the cage my swims were brief.

We ended up with a few more crabs to finish off our last day of fishing.  To our surprise, when we got back to the campsite it was "country night" and there was a concert going on right across from our site.  We had the best seats in the house to see the hilarious old man singing songs like "Blueberry Hill" and telling jokes in between songs.  At one point he had a large coughing fit, which just made it more memorable.

On our last day we had a long drive from Streaky Bay back to Port Augusta, but luckily there were a few tourist attractions along the way to stop at.  The first was Pildappa Rock.

The second stop was the "halfway across Australia" marker, and a giant galah statue!

Ryan and I spent that night in a hotel in Port Augusta because I had to fly out at 6am the next day, and Ben and Jeanne continued on to Adelaide.  Luckily our trip was over, because that night there was a massive storm that would not have been fun to sleep through in a tent.  So in the end, everything worked out perfectly!

The Eyre Peninsula - Part 1

March 7-9, 2012

After a few weeks in Western Australia, my Uncle Ben and Aunt Jeanne came back to South Australia to spend one more week with us before heading back to Canada.  We decided to do a road trip along the Eyre Peninsula because we heard that it was fantastic for fishing and had some beautiful scenery. 

Instead of flying all of the way back to Adelaide from work, Ryan and I met Ben and Jeanne in Port Augusta (4 hours north of Adelaide).  They had already picked up the camper van so we continued immediately on to Whyalla.  There we had a great campsite right on the beach, and the next morning we rushed out to buy fishing gear.

Unfortunately I didn't take notes about this trip like I usually do, so I can't remember exactly what we did that day.  I think we tried our hand at fishing in Cowell that afternoon and caught our first fish.  Or that might have been in Arno Bay.

The Arno Bay campsite was right next to a jetty, so we knew we could get a good start on the fishing there.  Jetties are great for catching crab, so that became a priority for us.  Upon arrival at the campsite in Arno Bay we found out that we were just in time for a barbeque!  With our meal ticket we got a bottle of red wine for each couple, steak, sausages, chicken wings, and snapper, along with some great entertainment.  After a delicious meal we went out to try some more fishing. 

We caught a few little fish that we were able to use as bait for our crab nets, but we didn't catch anything we could eat.  The obvious highlight of the night, though, was when Ryan caught a Pt. Jackson Shark!  He pulled it up in our crab net.

The next morning I got up with the sun to try my luck at catching something.  I threw in the crab nets and a rod, but only the nets were a success.  There was an old man out on the jetty when I got there and right after I threw in my nets he asked me if I caught anything.  To my surprise there was already a Blue Swimmer Crab in my net!  After he helped me get it into the bucket I threw the nets back in.  A little while later I pulled up the net to find a sting ray in it!  In my panic I didn't think to take a picture of it, but it got back into the ocean safely after lowering the net. 

Unfortunately this guy was missing a claw.

After our luck ran out on that jetty, we continued our drive through Port Lincoln to Lincoln National Park.  This time, instead of fishing off of a jetty we used our 4 wheel drive to go off the beaten path and try our hand at some shore fishing.  The spot we found was beautiful, but unfortunately we didn't catch any fish.  The only thing I caught was Ryan's hat after it blew away and I had to rescue it.

  

Our resting place for the night was Coffin Bay - famous for its oysters.  By the time we got there we didn't get much of a chance to explore the area, but there were some friendly kangaroos a short ways away from our site, and hundreds of very chatty parrots!

Family Visit - Touring around Adelaide Jan. 27-31

After 24 hours of flight delays (not to discourage anyone from coming to visit us), my Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Ben arrived in Adelaide from BC, Canada.  Despite the setbacks they had, they were in good spirits and eager to go for a swim at the beach.  That was actually only the 3rd time I have ever been in the ocean, but it was really nice and warm.  After that we headed home for an Australian meal of kangaroo burgers.

The next day we went to the Adelaide Central Market in the morning (one of my favourite places), and since it was Chinese New Year there were people walking around in costume with dragons and drums to celebrate.  We bought all of the ingredients for a gourmet picnic and headed to the Botanic Gardens for lunch.  A first for me was going into the rainforest exhibit, which I mistakenly thought was the butterfly exhibit, and we saw a cool spider but no butterflies.  While walking back to the car we ducked into the National Wine Centre of Australia for some much needed air conditioning, but it was also a nice, free museum about wine making in Australia.   That night with our purchases we made the best homemade green curry I've ever had, which is exciting since we've been trying to master it for a few years now.

Sunday January 29th we headed to Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills for a scenic drive, some wine tastings, and a wander around the quaint German village.  Turns out, though, it was the Crush Festival that weekend so it was a lot busier than we had expected.  We seem to have a knack for showing up unaware to festivals in Adelaide!  First we went to Somerled for a fun and delicious tasting, and ended up buying some wine (Alta, Sauvignon Blanc, 2011).  Our lunch at the German Cake Shop was disappointing, despite the delicious sounding name and the good reviews, but we supplemented lunch with some cheese and condiment samplings at other shops along the way.  We took the scenic route home and were lucky enough to spot a koala at one of the viewpoints.

That evening we met Ben and Jeanne's friend Fay for a drink and some dinner.  She leant us her car for the week and is very knowledgeable about the area, so it's always fun to see her.  Upon her suggestion we bought fish and chips, then ate them on the beach while watching the sunset.

The green hat Jeanne is wearing was a freebie from a drive through beer store.  We didn't buy that brand of beer, but Fay sweet talked the young clerk and somehow we ended up with a free hat!

On Monday we headed to the next major wine region in the area, McLaren Vale.  On the way we stopped at Seaford Beach to watch the surfers, but proceeded to the McLaren Vale Info Centre where the gang did their first wine tasting from 90 Mile Wines.  Next was Oxenberry Farms, which was an extensive wine tasting with a delicious lunch to follow.  The wine wasn't great, but it was good practice for the 3 tasters (I was driving and not tasting). 

Wirra Wirra was the next vineyard on the list, and one Ryan has been trying to get to since we moved here.  They have great red wines, and Ryan even joined their wine  club to get better deals!  We now have an assorted case of red wine for whoever visits us this winter (hint hint!)  After all of the wine we decided to do a beer tasting, but Vale Ale didn't excite anyone so we went to our final destination: Mables Chocolates!

On our last day of playing tour guide we went to the Barossa Valley, which is the third wine region in the area.  After a short walk through the town and into the Barossa Regional Art Gallery, we went to Maggie Beer's Farm Shop for lunch.  This was super exciting for me because Maggie Beer is a very famous Australian woman known for country cooking.  I've seen her on Masterchef and tried some of her recipes.  I knew there was a slight possibility that we would see her, but I figured it was very unlikely.  Turns out, she was actually doing a photo shoot on the property that day!  We didn't meet her or anything, but she was around the whole time we were there.  Every day they do a cooking demonstration there as well, which was quite a fun and delicious experience.

Since everyone was a bit sick of wine, we went to the Mengler Hill Lookout and Statue Park for a break.  There we had a beautiful view over the entire valley, and we also explored the abstract statues created by artists from all over the world. 

To end off the day, though, we went to Jacob's Creek.  It's a brand of wine available in Canada, so we thought it would be fun to check it out while we were in the area.  The have a bunch of wines here that aren't exported, so it was actually a better tasting than we were expecting.  We especially liked the Moscato!

NZ: Mount Cook to Lake Tekapo to Christchurch

I really want to finish writing about New Zealand so I can move on to more recent news.  Advanced warning - this one will be long!

January 6-9, 2012

Waking up in a hotel was a really nice luxury for this trip, but it didn't do anything to subside the horrible pain we both felt in our legs.  The storm had settled in over the mountain so we lost our beautiful view, but we were thankful we weren't waking up on top of the mountain as per the original plan.  We stayed in the room until our 10am checkout watching movies on TV, only to find that the breakfast buffet downstairs closed at 10:30am.  Finding breakfast elsewhere wasn't easy, so we settled on the "mountaineering breakfast" at the info centre and felt terribly sick from eating so much.

After a short drive, we arrived at Lake Tekapo where we booked an inTENTS campsite (joke courtesy of Ryan who wrote the notes for this day).  It was the first time in New Zealand that we got a numbered site, and it was really nice. 

As quickly as we could on very sore legs, we set up the tent then immediately went to the hot springs right next to the campsite.  I'm not even sure if they were real hot springs or just heated swimming pools, but we needed something to try and soothe our muscles.  The weather was perfect for it since it was sort of rainy and cool, so we had a very relaxing time even though it didn't help the legs at all.

We needed a day to relax, so when we got back to the campsite we just played board games and cooked a delicious dinner on the barbeques they provided.  The view was beautiful so we just took our time and finished off our bottle of wine.

That night was the first night we had rain, which was fine because we really couldn't move anyways.  By the next morning my body was definitely even more sore, so we had to take it easy again.  Since the campsite was so nice we decided to stay a second night, which left the entire day for us to walk the kilometre to the "town" and back.  We actually slept in until 10:30am, played board games until 1pm, then started the slow walk to town.

We knew we wanted to hang out in a pub, so we stopped at the one selling Radler (beer and lemonade, like we had in Germany).   We ordered 2 Radlers, a chicken salad, and some potato wedges, but unfortunately didn't have enough money on our travel card or cash to pay for them.  Ryan cancelled our order of wedges and we enjoyed our "last supper," which was, regrettably, not very filling.  Consequently, the beer went right to my head and I was a mess.  The town didn't have an ATM, so we were pretty much stuck with only $4.80 in coins and an afternoon to kill. 

Lucky for us, we stumbled by a mini-putt course on our walk home and I insisted we go in and play.  To pay we had to use our Australian card and pay service fees, but it was totally worth it.  It was by far the nicest course I have ever seen, even though it frustrated Ryan because there was no geometric logic to the course layout.  It was New Zealand themed, so each hole had a different story to tell.  About half-way through the game we had to create two new rules.  First was a 15 stroke maximum so Ryan could finally finish one of the holes, and for me we implemented the "hit it where it lies" rule since I kept hitting it off course (including into the parking lot).

In the end, the final score was Steph 97, Ryan 111...on a par 47 course.  Getting better….?  Happy, we stumbled home to eat and play more board games.

The next day, our last full day in New Zealand, we had granola bars for breakfast and did some final car/tent cleaning before packing up for the last time.  We had a fairly long drive to do all the way back to Christchurch, but the weather wasn't great and despite taking the scenic route, it was not that exciting.  We passed a bunch of towns with funny names (like Colgate), but we were a little delirious at that point and found everything funny.  Like this:

Ryan (navigating): "Glentunnel's next" <pause> "Well, we've got that to look forward to."

Steph: "Anything interesting there?"

Ryan: "Nope"

Seriously, we laughed for like 10 minutes after that.

Ryan felt really sick the whole way home, so when we arrived at the hotel in Christchurch at 12:00pm he had a nap while I organized our stuff and made lunch.  That afternoon we did our final errands of groceries, gas, and the bank, but then promptly went back to packing and sleeping.  One cool thing though was the "golden kiwis" we bought at the grocery store.  They were the only kiwis we bought the whole trip, and they were awesome!  I seriously regretted not buying them every day.

Our 3:30am wakeup came awfully early, but after an earthquake-free night we were ready to head back to Australia.  The flight was uneventful, other than having to frantically wash out our fuel bottle so they wouldn't take it away from us.  Customs went smoothly and we arrived safely in Adelaide that afternoon. 

I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I have enjoyed reliving it while writing about it.  New Zealand was a beautiful country, and I can't wait to see what the North Island has in store!

NZ: Twizel to Mount Cook

January 4 and 5, 2012

While we weren't in a hurry to be anywhere, we wanted to get out of the horrible campground as soon as possible, so we had a quick breakfast and left.  On the way out of town we drove by our last Lord of the Rings site: Pellinor/Rohan Fields.  It wasn't anything special, but Ryan explained that they needed to find a huge area to film the thousands of extras for a battle scene, so that made it much more impressive to imagine.

During our one hour drive to Mt. Cook Village the view got progressively nicer.  Mount Cook is New Zealand's tallest mountain, but it is far more accessible than Mount Logan (Canada's tallest mountain).  To see it you can simply drive to the village, and there it is - no need for helicopter rides or massive hikes. 

Our original plan was to spend the day relaxing in Mt. Cook Village (just a few hotels and a campsite) and maybe do some short walks, and then start our 2 day hike the next day.  When we went to get information from the visitor centre, though, that all changed.  They informed us that the hike to the Mueller Hut was actually an 8 hour round trip hike - not the 8 hour one way hike we were expecting.  They also warned us of bad weather coming in, and strongly suggested we leave that afternoon instead of the next day.  We quickly bought a wool hat and some rain pants, and rushed to the car to organize ourselves.  By 1pm we had made some lunch, packed our bags, and were ready to start our hike.

No, we did not plan to have matching shirts.

The hike was only a few kilometres in distance but one kilometre vertical, which is quite deceptive.  The hike didn't look so bad from the bottom, but there were a few false summits which were frustrating.

Because we were planning to stay overnight in the hut, we were carrying sleeping bags and food, but no tent or mats.  We also had a bazillion litres of water because Ryan is ultra paranoid of running out.  For me the hike up the mountain was very difficult, and I definitely held Ryan back (and kept making him drink some of my water to lighten the load).  Many people were doing it as a day hike and didn't have gear, so they of course passed us on the way up as well as on the way down.  I'll save you the groaning and just show you some pictures so you can understand just how fantastic this hike was.

That's Mount Cook on the left, with the clouds at the top.  It is rare to see the top, and we had almost a full day with a perfect view.

This was only just over half way, with a deceptively long way to go.

We eventually reached the last ridge and then had a spectacular view on the other side of glaciers and the hut.

Our first view of that hut - finally!

From the hut we could see a bunch of little avalanches on the neighbouring mountain, so I tried to catch a video of one with limited success.

One thing that was quite curious were the parrots living at the top of the mountain.  They're called kea birds and supposedly they're quite destructive, but it was super  weird to see parrots living in such a barren environment.

As spectacular as the views were, we were more than relieved to reach the hut around 5:30pm.  We had to be there by 7 for the call-in, and Ryan was getting anxious about the weather.  We had never done an overnight hike before, so we had no idea what to expect of the hut.  Turns out, it was awesome!  Sleeping mats were provided on the bunks, and the beds were next to a window with a beautiful view.  The hut got progressively fuller throughout the evening because heavy winds were driving the campers indoors to sleep, so we were lucky we got there early to claim a bed.  Upon arriving we had a quick dinner of instant soup and rice, and we were fast asleep by 8pm. 

I slept restlessly that night because I wanted to make sure to get up and see the sunrise.  At 6:15am I finally got up, but it was very overcast and there was no notable sunrise.  I promptly went back to sleep until 8:15, and by that time most people had already left the hut.  After a leisurely morning we made the 1.5 hour round trip to the actual summit of the mountain.  The climb was technically difficult, and really not worth the trip.

We started the descent at 10:20am, eager and  enjoying being cold again walking through snow (this was our Christmas holiday after all). 

Things took a turn for the worse once we got off of the flat area and we realized just how high up we were.  Ryan probably would have been fine if I hadn't been so slow, but we were both shocked at how hard the descent actually was.   My legs turned to jelly early on and I knew I was in for a painful walk down.  A storm quickly rolled over the neighbouring mountain ranges, so the views weren't as good as the day before.  The whole way down we were worried about the storm coming in, and what we would do if I actually couldn't make it down any further.  It got embarrassing when an old couple passed us on a day hike up, but it didn't make it any easier.  Anyways, for the last 45 minutes  Ryan carried my bag and we managed to reach the bottom by 2:30pm.

We were proud that we made it and wouldn't take back the experience, but we definitely needed a comfortable bed and a hot shower at the end of it.  We discovered that the campsite we had planned on staying at the night before had not fared well during the heavy winds, and a picnic table had blown across the field.  Without even looking around we checked into a nice room at the Hermitage Hotel with a spectacular view.  We ate a well-deserved pizza downstairs, then showered, napped, watched a few movies, and played a few board games.  We were quite stiff and sore, but still managed to stay up until 10pm!

(wine: Earth's End, Central Otago, Riesling, 2008)